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It was an interesting and emotional mid-term election, and the results were pretty much in conformance with historical norms: the out-of-power party – in this case the Dem/socialists – took control of the House, and the party in power – this time the GOP – retained control of the Senate.

The Dem/socialists eked out enough seats in the House to win a slim majority, but sadly for them it was at the expense of “moderates” who were more likely to “cross the aisle” to find compromise with them than those GOPers who remain. In the Senate they actually lost seats, widening the gap and ceding even more power to the GOP and Mitch McConnell, as well as the newly-energized Lindsay Graham.

In other words, the “Blue Wave” that was expected turned pretty much into a trickle.

The wild-eyed Sturm und Drang we’ve seen coming from the left will now be institutionalized. Pelosi unleashed! Maxine Waters on the prowl! Why not?

To get any proposed legislation actually enacted into law will mean it will have to make it through the Senate and past Trump’s potential veto. But that kind of compromise and moderation isn’t the face the Dem/socialists put on their campaign. This is the party of the “#Resistance”! This is payback for defeating Ms. Pant Suit in 2016! It’s time to get even!

That’s why I think we’re in for a couple of years that promise to be highly entertaining; in fact, I think it will be a spectacle.

Much of Pelosi’s House contingent is made up of hardcore zealots who will consider their new majority as being the sign of a mandate to advance their radical agenda. So I think there’s a real chance we’ll see proposals for much more draconian gun control, universal “free” healthcare and education, and a repeal of the recent tax cuts, along with proposals to actually increase taxes.

Now that they’re no longer facing an electorate that might react adversely to such antics – at least for the next two years – the extreme fringe nuts – yes, Maxine, I’m looking at you – will push hard for “investigations” and impeachments; certainly of Trump, and maybe even others, such as the recently-seated Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Of course, the political reality is that none of these antics are going to actually produce any tangible results. The Senate and the veto, again. But think of the theater of it all! Great political Kabuki!

Pelosi’s problem is compounded by the fact that she probably doesn’t want the House to end up looking like an impotent joke. So she’s faced with a real tightrope walk. How does she get legislation proposed and enacted into law while at the same time appeasing the far-left base that gave her party the House, all while facing a Senate and President who vehemently oppose the agenda of that base?

What a predicament!

Meanwhile, Trump will be calling her and her party out as being obstructionist – the “party of ‘No’” – as they try to block his agenda. Trump is also a president who isn’t afraid of government shutdowns, as he’s already demonstrated. We’re not talking about a Bush here. This is The Donald.

The upshot is that I think this actually paves the way for Trump to enjoy a casual cruise to re-election in 2020.

He’s a master at ridiculing and belittling his opposition. Like it or not, he does it masterfully, and Pelosi and Company are going to give him plenty of ammunition.

If Pelosi’s House actually does impeach him – which will be a futile gesture since conviction and removal from office will die in the Senate – it will be viewed as the political stunt it is and redound to Trump’s benefit.

Mueller’s eternal joke of an “investigation” will be revealed as the waste of time and money it was, and will be over, gone, and forgotten.

All the while Trump and McConnell will be ushering judicial and other presidential appointments through the Senate confirmation process, the same process that brought us Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, among many others.

The Dem/socialists don’t even have a viable presidential candidate, at least as of now. Who are they going to run? “Lie-A-Watha” Elizabeth Warren? Cory “Spartacus” Booker? “Lunchbucket” Joe Biden?

I have to say, I’m kind of looking forward to the next couple of years. It looks to me like a lot of good material to write about.

I’ve said it before, right in these pages: we’re in the midst of a civil war in this country every bit as profound and fundamental as the one that took place in the 1860s. So far it’s been pretty bloodless, but make no mistake. We’re in a battle for the very soul of this nation.

In the two years since Donald Trump put an end to Hillary Clinton’s “unstoppable” ascendancy to the Oval Office the Dem/socialists have cranked their outrage meter all the way up to eleven, culminating in the outrageous and despicable attempt at character assassination targeted against Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation process as a Supreme Court justice.

Fortunately, that attack failed and Kavanaugh has been seated. But that battle may well not be over. Many of the Dem/socialists’ leading voices – luminaries such as Nancy “The Red” Pelosi, Cory “Spartacus” Booker, and Maxine “Muddy” Waters, among others – have intimated, if not outright promised, that they will explore the possibility of impeachment, not only of Kavanaugh, but Trump himself, too, if they manage to take over control of the House of Representatives.

It doesn’t matter to the unhinged left that there aren’t any “high crimes and misdemeanors” upon which to hang an impeachment charge, nor that removal from office requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate, a level impossible to attain. This is all political kabuki, theatrical melodrama designed to impede the political process while chomping from a bowl of sour grapes.

We need to put an end to this right now.

The first step is to make sure that Katie Hill doesn’t win election to the House of Representatives. She’s already made her position clear on Kavanaugh, calling him a “serial predator” in a tweet (https://twitter.com/KatieHill4CA/status/1045009222918799361). As I discussed in my September 19th column (“A Lynching in the Senate”) there was no actual evidence to support the outrageous accusations, but that evidently didn’t mean anything to Hill. Is that the mindset we want to see in the person representing us in the US House of Representatives? Guilt and personal destruction by unsupported accusation? Do we want to send her to Washington so she can hop on the impeachment bandwagon?

Throw in the nature of the policies she supports – gun control, government-run healthcare (which will destroy both healthcare and the economy), amnesty – and you have a hard-left activist who I believe doesn’t represent the values of our community.

Let’s re-elect Steve Knight.

We have our work cut out for us at the state level, too. If and when the Sacramento socialists get a super-majority, bad things will happen. You think the gas and car registration tax hike was bad? Well, buckle up if they get even more power!

To that end, it’s a big “NO” on Christy Smith and a “Yes!” for Dante Acosta. For those of us in the north part of the SCV, Tom Lackey gets the nod over Steve Fox.

The race for Governor is pretty much a no-brainer. It’s interesting how, in his media ads, Gavin Newsome tries to come across as reasonable and moderate. All you have to do is look at his tenure as Mayor of San Francisco to see the real face behind the mask. John Cox is the guy to vote for.

Leftist extraordinaire Xavier Becerra is being challenged by Steven Bailey for the post of state Attorney-General. This is an often-overlooked position in people’s election thinking, but it really is quite important. Let’s support Bailey.

At the local level, I’ve previously mentioned that we have a group of radical leftist activists who have “endorsed” certain candidates for some of the offices on the ballot. To me, that’s a list of candidates to avoid. Here they are:

City Council: Haddock, Trautman, and Logan Smith. There are 12 other candidates from which you can choose, including my friend Jason Gibbs.

Saugus Union School District: Barlavi, Arrowsmith, and Chris Trunkey.

Hart Union School District: Donna Robert and Kelly Trunkey.

You may have noticed I didn’t mention the race for US Senate. Feinstein versus De Leon. Well, it reminds me of a movie: “Dumb and Dumber”. I’m sitting that one out.

I’m not a member of any political party, so, as a conservative “independent”, those are my recommendations for the upcoming elections.

I often say that when it comes to politics the only person I agree with 100% is… me.

I think that Ronald Reagan was the greatest President this country’s had in at least my lifetime – I’ll be seventy in a few months – and even he did things I didn’t agree with.

The same can be said for Steve Knight, our incumbent congressman for the 25th District, who is facing off against Katie Hill, a local Dem/socialist, in this mid-term election cycle.

To give you an example, I think Knight’s off base on his approach to dealing with our illegal alien issue; he’s a bit mushy. He’s not pro-illegal alien, but he’s also not firm in advocating an approach he endorses to address the broader aspects of the issue.

However, on many other issues, notably Second Amendment rights (an issue near and dear to my heart), he’s a hard charger, a true stalwart. He opposes Common Core in our schools; is a strong “law and order” guy (no surprise given his background as a cop); believes in election integrity and promotes it by supporting Voter ID laws and opposing “all-mail-in” ballots; he supported Trump’s tax plan, which has led to the economic boom we’re currently enjoying; has voted to repeal Obamacare; supports our alliance with Israel; and in general has proven himself to be a Representative who actually represents the values that I believe are held by a majority of the residents of this district and the SCV.

On top of that, Knight brings experience to the table. He’s an Army vet, former cop, and served in both the state Assembly and Senate. He’s completing his second term as our congressional Representative, and currently serves on three committees in the House: Small Business; Science, Space and Technology; and Armed Services.

Hill is a whole different ball of wax. She has no voting record to which I could refer, never having served in elective office at any level, so I had to refer to her web site (https://www.katiehillforcongress.com/home) to get any useful information about her. In other words, she’s an utter tyro.

Here’s what I found there: “Katie resides in Agua Dulcé with her husband and animals on a small farm… She openly identifies as bisexual… a new kind of candidate, who will work on behalf of all members of this community… is a proven leader… running for Congress to give a voice to the people of California’s 25th district… a proven track record as an advocate for progressive policies… She will continue to be an energetic progressive leader… healthcare that puts patients before profits and the 21st century infrastructure for a sustainable equal-opportunity economy. Katie is running to be part of a new generation of leaders in a new House majority…”.

A “proven leader” how? A “new kind of candidate” in what way? Why do I need to know she “openly identifies as bisexual”? In what way will she “work on behalf of all members of this community” that’s any different from any other partisan political candidate? How would that even be possible, when the chasm between the Republican and the Dem/socialist is wider than the Grand Canyon? Whichever one wins will be representing the interests of the people who voted for him or her. It’s called “winning” and “losing”. I can’t imagine any “progressive” representing any interest with which I agree. “Progressive” is Orwellian Newspeak for “socialist”.

This is borne out by her positions on certain key issues. She’s for “Medicare for all”, which means government-run healthcare. If you like your doctor, too bad. An absolutely budget-busting idea that promises to destroy our economy and medical system.

She’s anti-gun, touting her support of useless gun bans. She spouts the usual “Income Inequality” rhetoric of socialism and class warfare. She opposes school “privatization”, AKA vouchers. On a wide range of important topics, such as foreign policy, defense, and the military, she’s silent.

But the most important part of her message is that of being “part of a new generation of leaders in a new House majority”.

Ah, yes… that hoped-for “new House majority”. That’s the “new majority” that wants to impeach Trump, and that has as members Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Bernie Sanders and Keith Ellison, among a host of other radical socialists. That’s poised to welcome the latest self-proclaimed Socialist crackpot in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – a woman whose sheer and unabashed ignorance is worthy of a column of its own, complete with laugh track – into its ranks. That wants to roll back the recent tax reform, and return to socialist wealth redistribution.

That’s the “majority” to which Hill wants to contribute and be a part of. Even if she objected to some of their policies – and there’s absolutely nothing on her site that suggests to me that she would – can a young first-term neophyte, with no previous elective experience, be expected to stand up to the likes of Pelosi, Waters or Sanders?

Are you kidding me? Are you ready to hear the words “Speaker Pelosi” again?

And in what way do any of those policies conform to the values of the majority of people in this district and valley?

When I started this column I wrote that I’ve never agreed 100% with any candidate. But I’m here to tell you that the inverse isn’t true. In Hill I believe there’s a candidate with whom I disagree 100%.

How about you? How will you vote this November? I know that I’m going for Steve Knight.

Because our gasoline is so very expensive (due to gross over-taxation) I usually gas up at the independent station at the intersection of Magic Mountain Parkway and Bouquet. While I was there the other day filling the tank on my happily un-PC gas-guzzling SUV, I noticed a billboard – a sign – on the south side of the intersection. It read:

“CHOOSE CHILDREN OVER GUNS

Our Congressman Steve Knight Has an A from the NRA

Call Him and Ask Why”

Below that was a line naming the sponsors of the sign, a local Dem/socialist activist group.

When I moved here in 1984, like many people one of my main motivations was to escape the leftist swamp of LA city. The Santa Clarita Valley was an oasis of conservatism. Pickup trucks abounded. My wife’s BMW was a rarity. Cows grazed on the grounds next to College of the Canyons, a common sight when one took the Valencia Boulevard off ramp from I-5. Where the mall is now was nothing but vast onion fields from which hot air balloons launched on Sunday mornings if the wind was calm.

If you’ve ever wondered where Cinema Drive got its name, there was a small multiplex theater located on the intersection with Valencia Boulevard, with a little Sutter’s Mill restaurant on the other side of the street, one of the very few eateries in the area.

We were regularly mocked and ridiculed by the nabobs in LA, particularly those in tony enclaves like the Westside and Beverly Hills. “Redneck cowboys” and “hicks” was a pretty common theme.

Meantime, we “hicks” were enjoying a “small town” quality of life that attracted other like-minded people, and so our valley grew in population, which drew further development in the form of businesses relocating to the area, and amenities – such as the mall and restaurants – opening, further enhancing the area’s desirability, and drawing evermore people eager to enjoy the area’s ambience.

Of course, some of those people happened to be some of the same folks who previously scorned and mocked us, and recently included a Westside lawyer who carpetbagged his way here just in time to qualify himself to run for Congress as our local Representative. But I’m sure that was all a big coincidence… right?

It’s always been interesting to me how leftists move to conservative areas to enjoy a better lifestyle than the place they’re leaving behind, but then try to impose the same political agenda that turned their prior home into the very swamp they’re trying to escape.

They’re like evil termites. They wreck the home they live in, then fly off to find some new home to wreck.

Anyway, I decided to check further, and confirmed that the dreaded NRA did, indeed, give Knight a 93% back in 2016, which sounds like an “A” to me. Great! Even more reason to vote for him (as if there was any doubt to begin with)!

I have no idea why our local lefties think this is somehow a negative. Do they think the NRA is some faceless, shadowy, monolithic conspiracy of evil villains scheming to somehow subvert the will of the people while sacrificing little kids to their nefarious agenda? A bunch of solitary old childless misanthropes sitting around in their bathrobes plotting to cache an armory in the dream of overthrowing the government? Illicit gunrunners and covert international weapons dealers swindling their way to vast riches?

What nonsense. Time for a reality check. It’s an organization of millions of like-minded everyday people, some of whom are probably your neighbors, who think that the Second Amendment literally means they have a right to own guns; who have families – including kids – of their own; who actually believe they have the right to have the tools necessary to protect their kids and family; and who want to share the shooting sport experience with those family members, as hard as that might be for leftists to grasp.

And as far as I know, not one single NRA member has ever been involved in any mass shootings anywhere.

The whole meme of “CHOOSE CHILDREN OVER GUNS” creates a false dichotomy that should more believably and accurately be stated as “CHOOSE CHILDREN AND GUNS”.

These election-year anti-gun jihads usually don’t work out too well for the left outside of urban metro areas. Just ask Al Gore and John Kerry. If there’s anything that can motivate those gun owners who are usually pretty lazy about voting, this is it.

As Napoleon Bonaparte reportedly said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”. I hope that sign stays right there through November.

I found Maria Gutzeit’s 28 November column “Watching the world burn” (link) to be very interesting and well-written. But I think her wish for a society free of partisan politics, though admirable and well-meant, is at its heart naïve and unrealistic.

The problem, I believe, is that we’re currently engaged in a cultural civil war in this country that’s every bit as profound and fundamental as the one that took place in the 1860s, though so far pretty bloodless. Thank God for that, at least.

Historically, political rancor, and even violence, is nothing new in this country. Elected representatives were known to whack one another on the head with their canes right on the floors of Congress; Burr killed Hamilton in a duel over politics; and, of course, there was the afore-mentioned Civil War itself.

World War II was the event that created a rare period of national unity which lasted well into the post-war era of the ‘50s and early ‘60s, when the world was rebuilding from that war’s destruction. That was the “Leave It To Beaver” era for which so many wax nostalgic, or mock mercilessly, depending on their political inclinations.

That era came to an abrupt and dramatic end with the riots at the 1968 Democrat Party convention in Chicago, which underscored the rise of the counter-culture that rejected the ethos of the later-named “Greatest Generation” – their parents’ generation – in favor of a radicalized vision of what American culture should be.

That counter-culture, firmly rooted in the ideology of collectivist socialism, ironically found its home in the very Democrat party it had so violently rioted against, and in the subsequent almost half-century rose to positions of prominence and power within that party. As a result of their de facto takeover of that party they’ve managed to radically alter its underlying principles to the point that they now reflect much of the agenda of those original radicals who rioted in Chicago.

We see much of its strategy deriving directly from Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”, a primer for the counter-culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s, which is essentially a blueprint for political disruption and manipulation. This is evidenced by class warfare pitting the “haves” against the “have-nots”, and the demonization of the “one-percenters”, as well as the creation, proliferation, and perpetuation of “victim” groups, which then go on to even compete against each other for prioritization, leading to further fragmentation and balkanization of the society and culture.

In such a noxious and confrontational political climate, our national motto, “E Pluribus Unum” – meaning “out of many, one”, a message of unity – has been effectively reversed for all intents and purposes into its mirror-opposite, “out of one, many”.

In her column, Maria writes: “The win will come when we all sit down and acknowledge common goals and work on that without uttering the words ‘democrats’, ‘republicans’ or ‘politics’… Imagine if we focused on electing people to improve and implement good policy, rather than ‘win’ for ‘our side’.”

While I think that’s a very nice thought, I also think it’s about as realistic as a kid’s Christmas wish list as he tells it while sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall. The reality is that “politics” is how we determine public policy in this country, and there’s at least one very sizeable portion of the body politic that seems determined to completely redefine the social and cultural fabric of our society. To destroy it in order to replace it with a system that is completely alien to traditional American ideals and constitutional principles.

In consequence, we see the politicization of almost everything, even sports, which used to be one of the few remaining bastions of political neutrality. Instead, we see the NFL immersed in their “taking a knee” controversy. We see popular media – TV, movies, and even books – showcasing political correctness at the expense of entertainment value. Higher education has become, at many universities, a venue of indoctrination rather than enlightenment.

In this adversarial climate, I believe the wish for reconciliation and cooperation, though well meant, has very little chance of being realized.

Donald Trump’s election to the presidency was as clear a clarion call as there could be that “business as usual” was no longer acceptable to the voters. The GOP Establishment seems to be utterly deaf to the message.

We’ve seen this reality play out from Trump’s first announcement of his candidacy right through to the present day.

During the election primaries, none of his opponents thought he had a slightest chance of actually winning the nomination, an incredulousness shared by the party machine. They mocked and belittled him, refusing to take him seriously. They were utterly stunned when he went on to actually win that primary.

But did that win alert the GOP that something profoundly different was going on this time around? Nope.

Many of Trump’s former opponents refused to endorse his candidacy, a few even threatening to endorse his opponent, Clinton. The GOP’s candidates for other offices continued to run on the promise to “repeal and replace Obamacare” in their own campaigns, repetition of a 7-year-old party campaign theme. But clearly, most of them didn’t take Trump’s campaign seriously, either.

How do we know this? Because when the most shocking and unexpected event took place, and Trump actually won the General Election, nobody was prepared to actually move forward and fulfill the promises they’d campaigned on for many years.

Having secured both chambers of Congress and the White House, was the GOP now prepared with a “shovel ready” plan to actually live up to and fulfill that years-old campaign promise of getting rid of Obamacare?

Not even close. They had absolutely nothing, because, as a party, they’d banked on the idea that Trump had absolutely no chance of actually winning the election.

In scientific parlance, this is what’s called “stupid”.

Compounding the problem, that stupidity continues, with no sign of abating. The “Never-Trumpers” are still in full roar, glorying in their “moral superiority”, reminiscent of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, utterly oblivious to the voices of that plebian mass in fly-over country that elected Trump. Elitist snobbery personified.

On the other side of the aisle, Hillary Clinton’s defeat was sending the same message to the Democrat Party, with the same result: deafness and denial.

When the campaign season opened the Establishment Democrats deemed Clinton the ordained candidate, and no other “mainstream” Democrat even threw their hat into the ring.

And then along came Bernie Sanders, the Democrat equivalent of Trump, an “outsider” who wasn’t even a member of the Democrat Party, having been elected throughout his career in the House and Senate as an “Independent” who only caucused with the Democrats.

To the consternation of the Establishment Democrats, Sanders’s candidacy put the coronation of Clinton in serious jeopardy, to the point that party officials conspired with Clinton campaign people to cheat Sanders out of any chance of winning that party’s nomination. Needless to say, the Sanders supporters were outraged by this when it became publicly known.

Once Clinton had secured the nomination, the DNC and her campaign apparatus evidently felt so confident of her chances of winning, and so scornful of Trump, that they decided to concentrate their campaign on the coastal urban centers and special-interest coalitions that in reality were already in the tank for her, utterly and completely ignoring everyone in “fly-over country”, as well as the masses of people who were ardent and now-outraged Sanders supporters, essentially wasting their time, energy, and resources.

Then the unthinkable happened. Trump actually won.

The result? A Democrat party in complete disarray and dissension, to the point of being in a shambles. A schism over what the meaning of such an unexpected and catastrophic loss means.

The Clintonistas are welded to the idea – really just an excuse – that it was “the Russians” and Comey at fault, unwilling to accept that Clinton was a terrible candidate who ran an incompetent campaign.

The Establishment, with a very few exceptions, can’t seem to decide whether their message to the electorate was too far to the left, not far enough to the left, too married to “corporate” interests, or what.

The very few who seem to get it have said that their party needs to take a serious look at the direction they’ve taken and the policies they’re promoting, and that it could be that the emphasis on social engineering – letting men use the same bathrooms as little girls, amnesty for illegal aliens, and the like – taking priority over bread-and-butter concerns about jobs and the economy may just be a very big mistake. The far-left culture-war policies that play so well in the coastal blue regions and some other major urban areas don’t go over at all well in areas outside of those enclaves.

Unfortunately for the Democrat party, if they want to be relevant on a national scale moving into the future, those voices really are being lost in the wilderness.

I think voters are clearly signaling to their respective parties that the old “Establishment” way of doing business isn’t going to cut it anymore. In the case of the GOP, that means they’ll no longer accept empty campaign promises that aren’t followed up with serious and concerted effort to actually implement the promised policies if elected. For Democrats, it means dropping the obsession with Social Justice and class warfare, and directing attention to matters that are of more concern to average everyday Americans.

Will anyone in either party “Establishment” pay any attention?

I don’t think Trump is the causative agent of any of this. The success of his primary campaign, and Clinton’s failure to beat him in the general election, are merely symptomatic of a greater dissatisfaction in the body politic, and the results of the last election – from primaries to general election – were the overt expression of that exasperation.

What’s truly interesting is how both parties are suffering at the same time from the same kind of malaise and disaffection. How this will play out at the polls is anyone’s guess.

Our family is very politically aware (and fortunately for us and family comity, all conservatives), and as everyone with a pulse knows, virtually from Inauguration Day there have been calls for President Trump’s impeachment. The hysteria seems to be reaching a crescendo recently, dominating news coverage, and as a result I received an email the other day from one of the younger members of our clan, a Millennial:

“Hello there!

“What do you think the odds are of Trump getting impeached? That’s all I see in my news feed now!

“Brett R.”

To answer Brett’s question, I think the odds of that are pretty much zero. First of all, you’ve got to understand that the “news” feed is all pretty much just biased – and I mean to a point I’ve never before seen in my lifetime – agenda-driven rubbish.

But to the actual legalities, there has to be actual “cause” for impeachment. Per the Constitution, that means “high crimes or misdemeanors”. So, what actual “crimes” or “misdemeanors” has Trump actually committed? None that I can think of.

Then there’s political reality. Impeachment takes place in the House, and conviction takes place in the Senate and requires a 2/3 vote of the Senators to do so and remove him from office. Both the House and the Senate are controlled by the GOP. So, what are the odds of ANY of that actually happening?

Precedent. Only two sitting Presidents have ever been impeached: Andrew Johnson and “Quick-Zipper Bill” Clinton. Neither was convicted. Johnson’s impeachment was purely politically motivated, based on his Reconstruction policies, and his conviction was one vote shy. Clinton actually had committed a crime – perjury – and yet wasn’t convicted in the Senate. So, particularly in light of Pantsuit Hillary’s federal felonious actions with her email rig and the failure to indict HER, I can’t see any way an actual impeachment takes place.

Another political reality. I think impeaching Trump would actually BENEFIT him. We saw the same dynamic when Billy-Bubba was impeached: his popularity actually increased. I think the same dynamic would inure to Trump. There’s a VERY large percentage of people in this country that are simply fed up with the SOP of how both major parties have been conducting business over the last few decades. Trump’s election is the embodiment of that frustration. Impeaching him… the consequences of that could be beyond imagination.

All these impeachment noises are being made by left-wing radicals spouting moronic sound bites for public consumption; people like Maxine Waters and “Nancy the Red” Pelosi. It’s become Dem/socialist SOP to act like silly, spoiled children. And all the while they’re doing it they’re losing actual political power all across the country with the exception of a few blue coastal states like Commiefornia and Taxachussetts.

I see this as simply political Kabuki from the American socialists. Think about it. If Trump’s impeached and convicted, that doesn’t roll back the election clock and make the Pantsuit Lady President. Mike Pence becomes President! They know that as well as I do. And that would be about the worst thing that could happen to them and their agenda, because he’s as clean as a whistle, and a great conservative. It would absolutely CRUSH their political aspirations. The whole point of this impeachment drivel is to try to keep Trump off balance, and to delegitimize him in order to try to weaken him. An actual impeachment would be a huge strategic error on their part.

After decades of bringing a plastic toy bat to a gunfight, the GOP – that party with an uncanny record of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory – finally grew some gonads and “went nuclear” on the confirmation process for Judge Neil Gorsuch.

It’s about damned time!

The result is that Gorsuch has taken his rightful place on the bench at the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS).

I, for one, couldn’t care less about their whining. In fact, in all honesty, I’m absolutely reveling in it! Because the time finally came when they had to pay the piper, and they didn’t like it one little bit. They’re squealing like stuck pigs. Good!

For decades, for purely political purposes, they changed rules, and moved the goalposts, at will. They counted on the GOP to consider themselves to be above such “petty” political games when they were themselves in power, and for the most part they’ve been right… up to now. The GOP was indeed stupid enough to keep letting them get away with it while refusing to resort to the same tactics themselves.

This kind of cynical, manipulative behavior goes all the way back to FDR, who threatened to “pack” the Supreme Court with like-minded leftist judges who’d back his socialist programs, and when the GOP legislators chickened out and backed off, the stage was set.

When Reagan nominated Robert Bork, a superbly qualified originalist jurist, to SCOTUS the scurrilous attacks on his character, ironically led by Ted Kennedy – the “Lion of the Senate” who was apparently taking a break from molesting and drowning young interns at the time – were so outrageous that Bork ended up withdrawing from consideration. The episode was so shameful it even led to the coining of the term “borking” for subjecting nominees to irrational and unreasonable political attacks.

When Bush I nominated Clarence Thomas to SCOTUS Senate Dems tried, unsuccessfully, to “bork” him with the infamous Anita Hill slander. When Bush II nominated Samuel Alito Senate Dems tried unsuccessfully to filibuster his appointment. They did successfully block Bush II’s nominee to the DC Circuit, Miguel Estrada, using a filibuster.

Yet when the shoe has been on the other foot, Dem/socialist nominees have sailed through to an easy confirmation, in spite of their political bent, with little to no GOP opposition, die-hard doctrinaire leftist Ruth Bader Ginsburg being a classic example. A Carter appointment, she was confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 96 to 3. Breyer was confirmed 87 to 9; Kagan by 63 to 37; and Sotomayor by 67 to 29.

When Bush I was president then-Senator Joe Biden – who was at the time chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee – said he would block any Bush nominee to SCOTUS that may occur in an election year. So much for the “stolen seat” of Merrick Garland, since all the Senate GOPers did during the last year of Obama’s term was follow that very same “Biden Rule”.

And when Obama was president the ever-despicable Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader at the time, used the so-called “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster option for all judicial appointments other than to SCOTUS, thereby ensuring that Obama was able to load the lower-level Circuit Court system with activist leftist jurists. The truth is in the numbers: at the end of Bush II’s term ten of thirteen circuit courts had majorities nominated by Republican presidents. But as of now, nine of them have majorities nominated by Democrat presidents. In other words, the situation reversed by almost 180 degrees during Obama’s time in office.

There’s nothing in the Constitution that requires anything other than a simple majority for the Senate to act. As it’s been used on judicial appointments, in reality it’s been a tyranny of the minority exploited by the Dem/socialists to pack the court system, right up to and including SCOTUS, with activists more concerned with advancing a “social justice” agenda than with ensuring that proper legal and constitutional principles are observed.

Thus the irony is so thick it can be cut with a knife when Mitch McConnell and the other Senate Republicans used the Democrats’ own traditional strategy, the “nuclear option”, to ensure Gorsuch’s ascension to a seat on SCOTUS. It’s why the wailing and bleating of the left is music to my ears.

This absurd column was full of hyperbole and hysteria, with a lot of ad hominem thrashing about thrown in for good measure. A return to his old “style”.

That’s a shame, too, because his last few columns were pretty good. But those were on the topic of Measure H, on which he took an actual “conservative” position, so maybe what we’re seeing here is an illustration of how conservatism is easy to support rationally, while socialism needs wild-eyed ranting to seek its justification.

As to the latest healthcare debacle, there’s a lot more blame to go around than just facilely throwing it at Trump, though I’m sure he’s the bogeyman Horton likes to target. House GOPers have had over 6 years to come up with a viable plan, something that actually made sense and included realistic elements that would address the free-market shortcoming of the current wealth redistribution scheme in place. The “Ryan plan” was a non-starter from the jump; in reality just a place-holder they could point at when asking for votes in the past elections.

Now that they finally had both chambers of Congress and the White House, to have seriously rolled out that tired piece of garbage as their offering was stupid beyond belief. There was no way it was ever going to be passed, as bad as it was. It was hardly better at all than Obamacare. What would have been the point?

They should have taken their time and crafted something that actually would have repealed and replaced Obamacare, not just tinkered with it a little bit. And Trump’s biggest failure was in not making them do exactly that. Maybe due to his own political inexperience, I don’t know.

As I’ve written before, we need to get government out of the healthcare and insurance equation. Government is the problem, not the solution.

Like this:

Internet “memes” are images or pictures that have some kind of ironic or caustic message in words printed over them. There’s a very funny one going around that shows an image of an empty city boulevard. On the top are the words “Picture of riots when Obama won 2008 & 2012”.

That really sums up pretty well where we are at this point in our political history. In the days following the election we’ve all been inundated with news reports and scenes of leftists running around and rioting, burning stuff down, screaming at cops and other citizens, blocking freeways and roads, and just generally making pests and fools of themselves. Spoiled brats throwing a collective tantrum because Clinton lost the election.

They’ve even added to the comedic element by coming up with some absolutely wild-eyed, tin-foil hat schemes, like California seceding from the rest of the country, an idea with a pretty poor chance of actually happening, as the Confederacy learned during the Civil War, and which these snowflakes would actually know if they ever bothered to learn any actual history. A degree in ethnic basket weaving doesn’t really cut it in formulating political action plans.

Then there’s the idea that somehow, enough state electors sent to the Electoral College (EC) – which officially determines the election outcome – will change their votes to completely overturn the results of the election, and either A) make Clinton President, or B) make the election a tie and prevent Trump from being certified. My guess is that this idea apparently comes straight out of some dude’s now-legal bong pipe, because it doesn’t even make any sense. If the electors vote a tie, it goes to the House of Representatives to make the decision, and they’re controlled by the GOP. If the electors tried to throw the election to Clinton, these snowflakes would find out what a REAL revolt looks like. So that idea’s going nowhere.

There’s also the idea, even proposed by Pelosi in her infinite wisdom, of doing away with the EC altogether, through some sort of legislation. Unfortunately for Nancy the Red, doing away with the EC requires a constitutional amendment. Good luck with that.

Now, to a certain extent I understand their angst. For the last eight years, under the uber-community organizer in the White House – Obama – they’ve gotten used to running roughshod over the actual rights of everyday citizens – the Joe Sixpacks – and seeing their radical agenda implemented at their every whim. So the realization that a new day has dawned, and there’s a new sheriff in town, must be alarming, to say the least. And a group which has gotten used to demanding “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” must find this change disturbing, I’m pretty sure.

Well, snowflakes, there’s a life lesson in this for you. If you push old Joe too far, he’s going to push back. And that’s exactly what we saw in this election, much to the surprise of you, the Dem/socialist party as a whole, and even the Establishment GOP. Plus it certainly didn’t help that you chose to run an unindicted felon and career corruptocrat as your nominee.

So the party’s over, snowflakes. You can still have a seat at the table, but you no longer OWN the table. The Sixpacks are there, too. And if you want to stay for dinner, you’ll have to learn how to behave yourselves.